Development Channels

OpenClaw is published on three channels.

Channels

• stable — tagged releases (vYYYY.M.D or vYYYY.M.D-<patch>), npm dist-tag latest.
• beta — prerelease tags (vYYYY.M.D-beta.N), npm dist-tag beta (macOS app may be missing).
• dev — moving head of main, npm dist-tag dev (when published).

Switching channels

openclaw update --channel stable|beta|dev

This updates both the git branch (when using a source install) and the npm dist-tag.

After switching

Always run:

openclaw doctor

Doctor migrates config + state and surfaces risky / misconfigured DM policies.

See also

• Updating.
• Doctor.